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<\/a>The entrepreneurial young Hickman was also passionate about cars, carving models from pieces of wood and drawing and painting cars, which he sold to the owners to earn extra pocket money.<\/p>\n
After leaving school he joined the Department of Justice in Natal to train as a magistrate. For the next six years he studied law, attended cases in various Magistrates Courts and carried out civil administration of all kinds.<\/p>\n
However, Ron soon decided that he was more interested in cars than a law career and like many young South Africans headed for the Northern Hemisphere to gain experience in a wider world. Consequently, at the end of 1954, aged 22, he borrowed \u00a3100 from his father and set sail for England aboard the\u00a0 Winchester Castle. Like all good South Africans, he headed for Earls Court where the Overseas Visitors Club (OVC) was a draw for hopefuls from the Colonies, in particular Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n Thanks to his musical background, Ron knew but one name in London, Boosey & Hawkes in Regent Street, the world\u2019s foremost manufacturer of brass instruments and drums and classical music publisher. As his funds had dwindled to a mere \u00a334, Ron needed a job and they seemed the first logical port of call. As luck would have it there was a vacancy in the accounts department and the young Colonial was asked to report to the appropriately named Miss B Sharp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After six months, he heard that Briggs Motor Bodies, in Dagenham, had placed an advert calling for clay modellers. Since the location of the company indicated a connection with Ford, Ron applied. Fortunately, he had made two novel scale model cars in his spare time and took them along for the interview. One was Ron\u2019s idea of what the next Morris Oxford should look like and the other a\u00a0 stylish\u00a0 Bentley. After an initial turning down, Briggs contacted him later and offered him the job.<\/p>\n Shortly after joining Briggs,\u00a0 Ron found himself in hot water. He had already contracted\u00a0 to cover the Earls Court Motor Show for the South African \u201cOutspan\u201d magazine and Colin Neale, Ford\u2019s chief stylist, seconded to Briggs, became concerned that Hickman was a Fleet Street spy and that all Ford\u2019s secret new designs would be leaked. Fortunately, the young South African was able to convince his boss that this was not the case.<\/p>\n Then he had a lucky break when Standard-Triumph head-hunted several members of Ford\u2019s design team. Convinced that Hickman, who had shown promise, would also go, Neale offered him a job as stylist and a three months in-house training course under the guidance of Eric Archer ensued. This was quite an achievement for a young man without any formal qualifications.<\/p>\n Just as Ron was being trained as a stylist, the Austin-Healey Sprite was being developed and this prompted Neale to think in terms of an Anglia 105E-based sports car primarily for the American market. Hickman was asked to work on the project \u201con the quiet\u201d since Neale doubted that the funding for the project would be approved by the Product Planning Committee, headed by Terry Beckett, later to become Sir Terrence for services to the motor industry.<\/p>\n The styling was radical with mid-ship fins forming the B-posts and which supported the \u2018Targa\u2019 top (nearly 10 years before Porsche). Plastic moulded bumpers were to be incorporated, as well as a reverse slope rear screen with wind down glass. When the product planners were eventually shown the project it was canned. The feeling was, possibly correctly, that an English Ford sports car wouldn\u2019t sell in the U.S. and that well-known British cars,\u00a0 like Austin-Healey, MG and Triumph, already had a foothold on the other side of the Atlantic\u2014 particularly in the lucrative Californian market.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During his three years at Briggs, which during that time had became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford, Ron worked on the Anglia 105E, the Consul Classic, the Classic-Capri and the Zephyr\/ Zodiac Mk111 range. After meeting Colin Chapman at the 1956 Earls Court Motor Show, he was asked to submit ideas on the proposed Elite, to be based on and influenced by the Lotus 11. Designer Peter Kirwan-Taylor had already submitted his design but Chapman was not quite convinced. He felt he needed further input and when he asked Ron to visit him at Lotus HQ he took along two colleagues from Ford, New Zealander John Frayling and Peter Cambridge. Frayling, who in Ron\u2019s opinion, was the world\u2019s best sculptor\/ modeller, agreed to build a model on a part-time basis. Ron offered his own ideas and from this team effort the Elite was born.<\/p>\n Ron eventually joined Lotus some two years later in 1958 and his first task was to get the delayed Elite into production. Many customers had already paid deposits and if cars weren\u2019t built and delivered Lotus would have been in a spot of bother. Under Ron\u2019s guidance Elite production got going and it wasn\u2019t long before he was appointed director and general manager of Lotus Developments.<\/p>\n On April 4, 1959, he married fellow Natalian, Helen Godbold who was nursing at a London hospital, with John Frayling as the best man.\u00a0 Three children Karen, Marcus and Janeen followed.<\/p>\n Ron\u2019s next project for Lotus was to design and develop a two seater, the S2 (Sport 2) as a replacement for the non-profitable Seven.\u00a0 Colin Chapman had proposed it be an open-topped car with monocque in GRP.<\/p>\n The rather basic Austin-Healey Sprite rival soon progressed into a more sophisticated car. Chapman had suggested a flat windscreen and side screens but Ron gave it a curved windscreen and wind\u2013up windows with counter balance mechanism from the Austin London taxi. Ron then brought into the picture the moulded bumpers intended for his original Ford sports car and\u00a0 retractable headlamps were also added. Suspension was to be fully independent and disc brakes were to be fitted all round. The fibreglass body was a unique one-piece \u2018Unimould\u2019 creation which was fitted on to the chassis by 16 bolt fixings, using special Hickman designed bobbins to distribute the load evenly into the fibreglass.<\/p>\n The backbone chassis was constructed from pressed sheet steel to form an elongated X and the substantial center spine gave the unit massive strength\u00a0 A standard Anglia 105E, 997-cc unit was intended but was soon replaced by the 1500-cc Classic engine which was later enlarged to 1600-cc and fitted with a unique Lotus DOHC head designed by Harry Mundy.\u00a0 Ron named the car the Elan, which followed Eleven and Elite and triggered subsequent Lotus names beginning with the letter \u201cE\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Colin Chapman had discussions with Ford to market the Elan through its dealer network but when some heavyweights from the Blue Oval heard about the pending deal they stopped it. It was Ford only from Ford dealers and intruders were unwelcome, particularly those with fibreglass bodies! Understandably, Chapman was devastated.<\/p>\n Two issues then dovetailed to the advantage of the innovative Chapman and Hickman duo. Ford appointed the lateral thinking Walter Hayes as its PR director with the express instruction to liven up Ford\u2019s conservative mass-produced family car image.<\/p>\n Hayes realized that the Mundy designed DOHC had great potential and saw Lotus as a joint venture partner to assist Ford in driving its new marketing program forward. Chapman felt that the engine should be fitted in the Anglia but Hayes told him of the forthcoming, bigger Charles Thompson-designed Cortina and felt that the engine would be better suited to the new Ford model.<\/p>\n There was much excitement at Lotus when a Cortina was delivered under wraps before it had been announced to the world at large. Ron vividly recalled an excited Chapman running up the stairs to ask him to come and have a look at the new Ford.\u00a0 Work on the Lotus version started immediately and the first improvement of several was a new dashboard with instruments taken from the Elan dash and front quarter bumpers from the Thames van.<\/p>\n A few months later the new\u00a0 engine had a great d\u00e9but when Jim Clark\u2019s Lotus 23 literally ran circles round the opposition at the N\u00fcrburgring. This successful beginning led to a deal for Lotus to build the Lotus-Cortina which went on to become a legend thanks largely to the sideways, three-wheeled antics of Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Sir John Whitmore, Bob Olthoff and some other well-known drivers.\u00a0 Lotus had OE parts supply status from Ford and the two companies, one Goliath and the other David, enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. It also laid the foundation for Ford\u2019s major involvement for the next many years in motorsport including the GT40 and the highly successful DFV Grand Prix engine.<\/p>\n Following the successful launch of the Elan, Ron started work on the stretched Plus 2 version with rear seats. At that time, in 1963, to coincide with\u00a0 Ford\u2019s future plans, Ron had produced a concept drawing of a mid-engined Ford V-8 powered Lotus.\u00a0 Ford, as part of its intended, new \u2018sporting image\u2019 wanted to build a racing sports car capable of winning the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hour. Rather than re-invent the wheel, Henry Ford offered to purchase the Ferrari company but the \u2018Old Man\u2019 couldn\u2019t stomach the thought of a Ford-Ferrari as the cars would be known. Nor did he welcome hordes of Ford investigative bean counters invading his territory. In the end the offer was turned down and in a huff Henry had to go back to the drawing board.\u00a0 Ford management accepted the fact that their own people in the U.S. had neither the ability, experience or knowledge to build sports racing cars and that the Brits were ahead in the race. British companies Cooper, Lola and Lotus were short-listed as likely partners in view of their collective successes. As Coopers had neither the facilities nor the resources they were eliminated. Ford felt that Colin Chapman was a maverick with his own agendas and he too was dropped. That left Eric Broadley, who had already built a Ford powered, mid-engined car dubbed the Lola MK6, styled by John Frayling. The car which was raced for the first time in mid-1963 at Silverstone by Tony Maggs and two weeks later in the N\u00fcrburgring 1000 Km race (the writer was there) by Tony and the late Bob Olthoff, was basically what Ford had in mind. History will tell us that Broadley entered into a deal with Ford and sold them his two\u00a0 MK6s, which were to become the forerunner to the GT40. Due to a clash of wills, mainly with regard to Broadley wanting to build a monocoque out of aluminium and Ford insisting on steel, there was parting of ways and Broadley went on to develop the Lola T70 just down the road from Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough. Naturally Chapman had hoped that Ford would choose his Hickman styled car but when he lost the contract he suggested that they build the car anyway. The mid-engined car, as can be seen in the photo, is clearly the forerunner of the Europa, the design of which was fine tuned by the ever present John Frayling.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>